Environmental Agencies, Superfund Cleanups, and Managing Enforcement Actions
Drinking Water on Tap: Money, Morality, and More with Tracy Mehan from the American Water Works Association - Reflections on Water Podcast
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) in late February 2024 announced an update to its Guidance for Evaluating Soil Vapor Intrusion in the State of New York. For the first time, the Soil Vapor/Indoor Air Decision...more
I became an inadvertent environmental lawyer in 1988 when my supervising attorney plunked a foot-high stack of paper on my desk (sorry, youngsters, paper was the medium) and asked me to decipher the CERCLA/Superfund statute –...more
Today, February 13, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International E1527-21 "Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment Process" becomes the modern legal...more
As anticipated, 2022 was another eventful year for the regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”) at the federal level. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) took significant actions under...more
Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known also as Superfund, in 1980 to address the horror of sites like Love Canal where discarded toxic chemicals began...more
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced a site-specific review that has broader implications for Superfund site cleanups with radionuclide contamination. The EPA is reviewing a Trump-era decision on...more
Liability for clean-up of hazardous substances pursuant to the Comprehensive Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 ("CERCLA," "Act" or "Superfund") can be extremely costly, amounting to hundreds of millions of...more
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”), also known as the Superfund law, imposes strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability. Over time, many companies and their legal...more
With its imposition of strict, joint and several, and retroactive liability, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA”), also known as the Superfund statute, has raised...more
Contaminated groundwater plume in north Orange County placed on federal Superfund list - Orange County Register – September 1 - A five-square-mile plume of contaminated groundwater in north Orange County has been...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued important guidance (EPA's Guidance) on June 15, 2020, clarifying the recently amended exemption of state and local governments from the definition of an "owner"...more
On April 24, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) adopted a temporary rule modification that grants extensions to certain site remediation timeframes under the Administrative Requirements for the...more
On April 20, 2020 the United States Supreme Court handed down an important decision on the reaches of settlements involving the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or “Superfund”)....more
On April 20, 2020, in Atlantic Richfield Company v. Christian (ARCO v. Christian or ARCO), the U.S. Supreme Court held that federal Superfund law does not preclude individuals from filing state claims for further cleanup of...more
The US Supreme Court held that CERCLA does not preempt state law restoration claims by landowners who are potentially responsible parties, but clarifies that the Environmental Protection Agency must approve landowners’...more
EPA Guidance on Superfund Site Field Work and Other Enforcement Issues - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a guidance document that outlines how the agency’s regional administrators should consider...more
On April 10, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) and Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) jointly released a memorandum to all EPA Regional...more
Given the billions of dollars that have been spent at federal Superfund sites, and the billions still to come, it is fascinating how relatively little attention has been devoted to the case of Atlantic Richfield Company...more
The Seventh Circuit has affirmed that a purchaser with notice of environmental remediation risks can face a significant liability share under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980...more
A United States District Court (Western District of Washington) addressed the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) request for access to real property in King County, Washington to undertake certain...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Under the Trump Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fully or partially deleted 22 sites from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act...more
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 9601, known as CERCLA or the Superfund law, was enacted in 1980 during the final days of the Carter administration. It was intended to...more
Courts have often noted that CERCLA is not a model of drafting excellence, and that some of the statute’s definitions are simply tautologies, e.g., that an owner means an owner. ...more
\The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Court”) addressed whether a California tax-sale purchaser was entitled to a third-party defense provided by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,...more